At last, after refusing to resign and circulating insulting satire against Caliph/Imam Ali, Mu’awiya made a formal allegation that Ali had engineered the death of Caliph Uthman. Further, he challenged Ali’s position as Caliph at all. In his allegation, he said that if Ali handed over the murderers to authorities in Damascus, they would hold a shura, a council or conclave, to elect the next Caliph. This was the same process that Meccans had used after the deaths of both Muhammad and Umar to give power to one of their own. Mu’awiya was openly setting Ali aside as Caliph, and since he demanded that Damascus should handle punishing the murderers, he was all but declaring himself Caliph.
Ali couldn’t go on ignoring Mu’awiya’s rebellion. The de facto capital of the Muslim state had moved from Medina to Kufa simply because the northward point was better for staging this enforcement of his command. During the whole period when A’isha had led her rebellion, the question of Mu’awiya was in abeyance. Going home would have been a mistake, and in fact Ali never went home to Medina. Now Ali set out from Kufa with a large army drawn from Kufa and Basra.
As you know from other battle stories, a battle happened when both armies, voting with their feet, agreed on a place. The place where they met was near Raqqa, the Syrian city that was the capital of ISIS from 2014-7. This modern period of occupation saw the destruction of Shi’ite tombs, perhaps some dating from this time. To reach Raqqa, Ali’s army traveled 500 miles west along the upper Euphrates River. They probably stopped when they felt they had found a broad plain suitable for the battle.
Mu’awiya had been planning for this, so he easily raised his army and came to the Plain of Siffin. Neither side moved toward battle. Ali probably should have done so, since he was officially the Caliph and had a right to put down the rebellion. But as a person, he was very reluctant to force a battle if there was any chance for a negotiated peace. He didn’t want it said that he had used his Caliphate to attack others. Mu’awiya was even more motivated to be the victim, not the aggressor. His posture was that he was making a reasonable and just request, not a rebellion. And so for three or four months, the armies stared each other down.
But Mu’awiya far outstripped Ali in cunning. He was one of those rare individuals in each century who stands out for outsmarting everyone at every game. He began by suggesting to Ali that they divide the empire roughly along the lines of the old Roman and Persian empires. Ali refused and challenged him to a duel—in public, loudly, where the Syrian army could hear him. Mu’awiya was no fighter and Ali was one of the best, so of course Mu’awiya refused. The danger was that the Arabs would call him a chicken, so now the battle must happen.
Shi’ites recall an additional incident: that Mu’awiya sent Amr to be his champion, but at a moment of defeat, Amr embarrassed Ali by taking his pants off. Ali was too polite to kill a naked man. (Abbas, 148)
The Battle of Siffin lasted three days and killed many. Ali had four sons fighting with him; his stepson Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr was in Egypt, but he had Fatima’s sons Hassan and Hussein and two more sons from later wives. All of them survived the battle. A number of Companions of Muhammad fought with Ali, including veterans of Badr and the Oath of the Tree. He had a corps of Qurras, the Quran reciters. His top general, apart from self and sons, was a cousin named Malik al-Ashtar, whose nickname “Ashtar” labeled him as one of those who had survived the Battle of Yarmouk while losing an eye to Roman archers. (He’s worth remembering for later, when Mu’awiya goes full-bore villain.)
Mu’awiya’s officers were mostly Umayyads (his conspirator Marwan was there) and Syrians from his governing structure, with a few interesting exceptions. With Mu’awiya fought Ubaydallah son of Umar, who had a long history of enmity with Ali. He also had the famous general Khalid’s son, and one of the tribal leaders who had followed A’isha in the Battle of the Camel. He probably had more men on his side, 120,000 to Ali’s 80,000. But he was definitely lacking in virtuous old heroes.
One of the men who died at Siffin was about Muhammad’s age, by now in his mid-eighties. Ammar ibn Yasir had been the son of slaves who accepted Islam very early. His mother had been tortured to death by Abu Sufyan, precipitating the Muslim exodus to Abyssinia. Ammar himself was tortured until he cursed Muhammad, but it was only from the torture. The verse in Quran 6:106 is believed to be about Ammar; it suggests that it apostasy doesn’t count if Allah sees a true-believing heart. Years later, Ammar had backed Ali after Umar died, putting him on bad terms with the Umayyads—who had, after all, killed his mother. Now his story came to an end fighting the Umayyads, avenging his mother while defending the Prophet’s family. He apparently fulfilled a prophecy Muhammad had made, too: that Ammar would die fighting rebels against Allah.
At the end of three days, Ali’s forces were close to finishing off Mu’awiya’s Syrians. And this is where Mu’awiya’s cunning stepped in. He had no intention of losing this battle. He sent his remaining cavalry out with single parchment pages of the Quran on their spearpoints. Of course Ali’s men stepped back. And the Syrian cavalry leader cried out, “Let the Book of God judge between us!” Mu’awiya’s other officers took up the cry.
Many of Ali’s men fell for the ruse, especially those who were Qurra, official Quran reciters. Ali and his inner circle saw exactly how Mu’awiya was wriggling out of defeat, but his men laid down their weapons. “He is tricking you! You have been cheated of a certain victory!” shouted Ali, but they didn’t listen, and above all the pious Qurra did not listen.
Then Mu’awiya’s herald came with a proposal: each side should send a champion who is versed in the Quran. These two men will settle the dispute according to the Quran or some Islamic precedent. Let the Quran decide! The battle-weary men didn’t ask why Mu’awiya suggested this plan. They just welcomed it. It sounded very pious, and if Ali stood for piety, then they felt Ali had to accept it. He told his army that it was a terrible idea, shaming them as cowards. As their Imam, he forbade them to go down this route. But as the human being standing there with half his army refusing to fight, he had to accept it.
- After the Prophet, by Lesley Hazelton.
- The Heirs of Muhammad, by Barnaby Rogerson
- The Prophet’s Heir, by Hassan Abbas